Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide

Pros:

Cons:

When I reviewed the originalNeverwinter Nights -- BioWare's first 3D role-playing game (RPG) that also allows users to create their own modules -- I made an esoteric Aristotelian analogy regarding the philosopher's stance on the old "chicken or egg" conundrum. I'll stick with a similarly abstruse theme in discussing Shadows of Undrentide, the first official expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights. Shadows of Undrentide is Carl Jung to Neverwinter Nights' Sigmund Freud. It builds and focuses on several aspects of the original while expanding the precursor's world as a whole. For those of you that dig BioWare RPGs, but aren't keen on psychologists, here's a translation: Shadows of Undrentide focuses on a few facets of Neverwinter Nights, and does them even better.

The single-player adventure in Shadows of Undrentide is more cohesive than the original's. The writing is tighter and the events are scripted better, making the experience flow in a superior fashion. You play the part of a young adventurer who is a disciple of Drogan, an elderly dwarven magic-user that's a member of the Harpers. With his glory days behind him, Drogan has taken to training a new generation of heroes in the remote village of Hilltop. One day, a group of kobolds attacks the makeshift school, incapacitating Drogan and stealing a mystical artifact. As you pursue the attackers, you unravel a larger story -- divided into two chapters and an interlude -- that takes you from Hilltop to the Anouroch Desert to a magical floating city.

In terms of basic gameplay, the expansion pack is largely the same as the original. It's a point-and-click RPG that has you running from location to location, killing lots of things along the way. The game also features more puzzles than the original. They're more time-consuming trial-and-error puzzles than real brainteasers; it would have been nice if the expansion had something as complex as Durlag's Tower from Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast. Lastly, there are some optional quests for you to undertake as well. In terms of challenge, the game mostly stays commensurate to your experience level, though there were a few portions in the middle and at the very end that were tough. The game takes about 20 hours to complete -- less if you plow straight through as a tank, more if you have a physically weaker character and complete every side quest.

Shadows of Undrentide features three companions for your adventure. There's a half-orc sorcerer named Xanos, a dwarven rogue-cleric named Dorna Trapspringer, and a kobold bard called Deekin. All three non-player characters (NPCs) have more personality than the ones in Neverwinter Nights. Sure, it helps that the characters are rather unusual (a singing kobold?), but the writing and voice acting behind them is strong, making them seem more like a true companion rather than a simple adornment. Another nice addition to the NPCs is that you have control over their inventory, allowing you to optimize their gear for various situations. The higher degree of control combined with more compelling characters makes adventuring with an NPC better than ever.

This isn't a fair fight, Psylancer is outnumbered 4 to 1.

As fantastic as the new NPCs are, there's one notable omission: a tank character. A sorcerer, a bard, and a rogue-cleric are great companions if you're playing as a physical powerhouse, but if you want to play as a druid or a magic user you'll want some muscle for backup. Disappointingly, there isn't a complementary NPC if you want to play as anything other than a melee-focused character (there is a character you can tell to level up as a tank, but it's not the same as a pure tank). This makes several areas of the game incredibly difficult. Parts of the Interlude and the end of Chapter Two are challenging with a balanced party; playing with two combat-deficient characters makes these portions of the game downright nasty.